3 useful ways to use push notifications on your website

Push notifications aren’t a new development in the world of web marketing. In fact, they’ve been around for quite some time. However, they haven’t quite received the acknowledgement they deserve. This communication tool can be used for a variety of purposes and can help to grow your list of subscribers and in turn, customers.

Push notifications allow you to check in with users and subscribers in a timely way. However, there are certain strategies that are more efficient than others.

Are you curious about the best ways to use push notifications for your website? Luckily we’re here to offer our tips for the most rewarding practices.

Here are the 3 most useful ways to use push notifications

1- Promote recent and relevant content to your subscribers

One of the most useful functions of push notifications is the ability to update your readers and subscribers in real time. What does this mean exactly? Well, when you publish a new piece of content, you can send a notification to let readers know a new piece has arrived on your blog, website or otherwise. Push notifications are especially useful if your website attracts fresh traffic, as this is a way to engage with those who haven’t quite become long-term customers but are already browsing your content.

Timing is everything when it comes to the push notification, and those sent at an awkward time can result in readers finding your website too intrusive. In the worst possible scenario, this could drive annoyed visitors to unsubscribe from your page altogether. Since these notifications are delivered on a real-time basis, they need to be well planned and timed for the most effective results. When it comes to planning out your notifications, it’s best to follow local time zones and find the least intrusive options.

If you know that you have a readership from more than one country, create push notifications for different countries based on their local time zone in relation to customer routines and business hours. Further, if your website is targeting a specific niche, it’s necessary to consider how this will affect when its best to publish the notification. Start by identifying your target market or customer base and make educated guesses about their habits and routines.

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2- Remarket well-performing content to new users

Another useful way to explore the world of push notifications is by repurposing your best-performing content. It’s a common issue in online marketing for posts that perform exceptionally well and following a day at the top, get lost in the shuffle. Luckily, this is where push notifications can play a significant role. With these, you can recycle well-performing content as an “Article of the Day,” or a highlighted piece as a way to make older blog posts available to new readers.

It’s important to consider the possibilities of push notifications as their individual parts, including the title, description, icon and the call to action. Let us dissect all of the individual elements:

• Title: The title is the first thing the reader will see, and this can make or break how a potential client will relate to your content. The title of your push notification should be simple, coherent and interesting, giving the reader reason to click on your content. Another important note is that there should be a sense of urgency communicated in the title. Find a way to entice your readers to take action in real time.
• Description: The description included in your push notification is where you’ll convey exactly what’s present in the content. Of course, this description should be in sync with the title. Make sure to include the benefits behind the user clicking on the notification.
• Icon, logo or image: If you have a company logo, it would be important to include it in your push notification as a way to make returning and prospective customers familiar with your brand. As a general rule, images make push notifications much more appealing and using them will greatly increase your chance of success with bringing in new customers.
• Call To Action: Once the reader has recognized your brand and read the title and description of your notification, they should then be prompted by a Call To Action. Push notifications sent without a clear call to action will lead to a decreased CTR. There are many ways you can approach this and these include offering free trials, gifts, incentives and benefits.

3- Target specific markets and demographics

As you’ll likely know from working in web marketing, all users are different and as a result, they respond to different things. With this in mind, it’s important that you don’t simply send out every notification to every user. As we mentioned, considering the habits of your readers is crucial to the success of your push notifications.

However, taking it one step further, it’s necessary to think about segmentation. Push notifications sent to a segmented group of users can increase your CTR significantly. Segmenting users will come down to choosing who to target based on demographics such as age, gender, geo-location, as well as the device they’re browsing from.

Even further, you can personalize your push notifications to target specific people. The personalization of push notifications should consider that each customer has an individual persona and thus, content should be personalized accordingly.

When targeting specific demographics, feedback can be collected from your visitors regarding what works and what doesn’t. Customer engagement can offer serious insight into how to improve your user experience. Website push notifications have a unique ability that distinguishes them from other methods of feedback collection such as email and onsite.

Push notifications have an excellent opt-in rate in comparison with these aforementioned methods. Therefore, they offer a way to further identify how you can tailor your content to your most responsive audiences. If you're looking for more ways to analyze searcher intent, check out our article on the subject.